mr. chairman. and let us proceed. >> i thank the gentleman for his statement and his great work on the committeement we now would yield to the gentleman from pennsylvania, mr. kelly. >> thank you, mr. chairman. mr. strickland, thank you for being here today. my concern has nothing to do with general motors. general motors has a history of building the most wonderful cars in the worldment i go back to the days when former president bush made a statement and said if we could just start -- if general motors could start building cars that were relevant, they wouldn't have their problems. at the time the leading manufacturer and sold more vehicles on the planet. sometimes there is a disconnect between what we say and what we do. my concern is not so much with general motors. my association with general motors goes back to 1953. my father became a dealer. in the early 30s when he was a parts maker and had the opportunity to move forward with his life but our family's and establishing a dealership and bei

mr. chairman i appreciate the opportunity to explain to you. >> mr. chairman, working with your subcommittee, i would ask that we continue the process of verifying what has just been said. essentially, how often it takes six months when there's a known catastrophic event. thank you, mr. chairman. >> thank you. >> administrator, we want to thank you for your time. we want to get to our next witness as quickly as we can. if the staff would quickly get ready for panel two, we want to get mr. ackerson started. because we're going to have a vote sometime in the next half an hour and we want the testimony in time for questioning of our second witness. thank you, administrator. >>> we're pleased to have mr. dan akerson, the ceo of general motors with us. you know the routine here, we've got to do the swearing in real quick and you get your five minutes and we'll go from there. so if you would raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? let the record sh

mr. chairman. as chairman of the conference, i'd like to nominate the chairman of the senate finance committee to be vice chairman. without objection, so ordered. first, i want to thank everyone for attending. before we get underway, i want to make a quick comment on location today. preparations of the state of the union prevented us from holding this in the capitol to accommodate both the house and the senate members. i intend to do that in the future meetings whenever possible. that said, i hope you're welcomed into the ways and means committee room. we'll begin with opening statements from members. each member has five minutes, and we'll alternate between house and senate members. there's five days to submit written testimonies for the record. i'll discuss in greater detail the next public meeting and in order to accommodate the house democratic retreat that begins tomorrow. i expect the meeting will take place next week on wednesday. this may be our first public meeting, but the work of this con

mr. chairman. welcome to the committee mr. cordray. i, too, am pleased that you are here with us today. i wanted to ask aboutish -- welch of the ability to repay roll under dodd/frank, whether a qualified mortgage should either be a safe harbor or rebuttable presumption. the concern has been expressed that a rebuttable presumption will present an uncertain legal standard that will result in overly cautious underwriting and less consumer access to credit. can you share with me your views the safe harbor rebuttable presumption? >> sure. so the ability to repay rule, as you know, and as you mentioned, is one of the rules congress has required us to adopt to try to fix what we're seeing as and what were problems in the mortgage market. you would think that you wouldn't really need to have a rule where the lender pays attention to whether the borrower will be able to repay the loan before making a loan. but securitization practices and other things created misaligned incentives in that market. so we are

mr. chairman. thank you mr. ceo. thank you, mr. chairman purchase please be joined by representative conley and maloney. we have four minutes left, only 60 have voted. >> i'm going to be very quick. >> gentleman from maryland. >> first of all, as a member of the board of visitors of naval academy, i just want to congratulate you on being named graduate of the year. thank you. that's to make sure -- you heard what i said. i don't want collateral damage from this hearing. so you as the head of gm -- you're assuring the public and i want -- listen up, press, that the vote is a safe vehicle. is that right? >> yes, sir. and i view this as a positive. it's our chance to get this before the american people. you represent the american people to get our story before you. we've taken out ads in the paper coincident with this that the investigation is complete. i do think there has been collateral damage. we're going to have to work hard to get it back. and today is a good start. >> well, i want to thank you f

mr. chairman, thank you very much. i had no intention of going down the path of your confirmation process except i can now respond to my colleague from ohio. whether or not mr. cordray was confirmed had no effect upon the consequences of dodd/frank to wall street, and to suggest that, at least i am -- had refused to confirm mr. cordray because of my protection of wall street, i find unfounded, and i can't imagine that there's not a constitutional issue about what article 2, section 2 of the united states constitution means when it says the president can make appointments when the senate is in recess. so that issue is certainly presents itself, i don't think it presents itself today. it has presented itself or will present itself in court, and i didn't intend to use this hearing as an opportunity to rehash this issue, but i do want to respond to the gentleman from ohio to indicate that i simply disagree with his premise about those of us who found fault, not with mr. cordray, but with the confirmation or the lack of conf

mr. chairman. mr. strickland, to be perfectly clear, i do not question why you get up in the morning and what's in your heart. i get up every morning with the same purpose you do. to serve the american people. believe me, i was a lot more comfortable in my showroom in butler, pennsylvania, than i was sitting here today. i'm sure you're a lot more comfortable sitting where you do every day. the question does become, when it comes down to it, perception is reality. and we constantly fight these perception that's are out there. whether they're real or not, that has nothing to do with it. at the end of the day, it's how did the public perceive that? so when we come down to these things, i have some slides here. and i have a problem with this. i've been involved in a lot of vehicle launches. and slide 14 that we have. if we can pull that up. usually most product launches that i've been to, there are people that show up. and in this one, if you look in the upper left hand corner, there secretary lahood with

mr. chairman. >> when you said that there were still 30 seconds left. >> five minutes. >> we will enforce the five minute rule. >> thank you for recognizing me. i am also delighted to referee -- a good opportunity to exercise their craft but i expect a big battle to take place at this morning's hearing because today we are holding yet another hearing on the keystone xl pipeline as a follow-up to the last hearing. and where the majority of attempted to force the obama administration to hastily make a decision on the keystone xl pipeline. let me remind you the majority first tried to move legislation that required the administration to forgo its legal obligation and due diligence and come out with a favorable decision for keystone xl last year. majority irresponsible view, so be it if the american public was left unprotected because of the administration did not have the time needed to conduct a thorough review of the personal a thorough review and a oversight of this project. my republican colleague

mr. chairman. mr. hairman, i just think the discussion over this keystone pipeline, the back and forth has been unfortunate, and it sort of mayors the discussions we have on energy policy in general. people talk about the need for us and all of the above strategy. but you here that says a lot. in reality and in practice this seems to always be an either or strategy on this committee when web energy debate. for coal or if you're for oil, then you can't be for solar and wind, and vice versa. the reality is, we do need to do all of this is where going to have energy security in the country. and we need to pay particularly attention to the nascent technologies and clean energy that are slowly but surely over time going to start to replace fossil fuels because as we all know fossil fuels are not infinite supply. a supply that's going to go down and something is to take its place. it's not going to take its place tomorrow. it's not going to take its place in five to 10 years from the. but if we don't start ma

mr. chairman. >> senator menendez? >> mr. to thank you for moving forward with this hearing and i want to thank attorney-general richard cordray for accepting the nomination under difficult circumstances and for his appearance today. and if i had a smile of your son and daughter i when my elections hands down. beautiful smiles. however, consumer protection and the director of the consumer financial protection bureau are important topics. but unfortunately, progress has been fleeting. progress, that is, in holding wall street accountable and protecting consumers. the consumer financial protection bureau officially opened its doors in july. mr. richard cordray was nominated days before, but months before, months before, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle said they would be siding with wall street and blocking any nominee. let me repeat that -- any nominee -- from having the consumer financial protection bureau. not only would they be blocking anyone, regardless of qualifications -- and i think we might agree that we h

mr. chairman. mr. strickland thank you for being here today. my concern is nothing to do with general motors. i go back to the days when former president bush made a statement and set up wicked -- if general motors started building cars that were relevant they wouldn't have robinson at the time with where the leading manufacture of vehicles on the planet. sometimes there's a disconnect to and what we say what we do. my concern is not so much with general motors because my association goes back to 1953 when i became a dealer and had the opportunity to move forward with not only his life but our families and establishing a dealership and being somewhat of that success in the combined efforts of a lot of people over those years. i problem today has to do with your agency. certainly it comes down to a question of trust. one of the things i see all the time whether in washington d.c. are back home in my district or whether i'm in my dealership, can i trust you? can i trust you to do what you said you we

mr. chairman, yes, i am and yes we are. we understand that our role under the law is to be an independent federal agency and our job is to carry out the laws that congress has enacted and protect consumers in the marketplace. we will stand with public officials from both parties. >> you have talked about reducing the regulatory burden on small community banks and credit unions, how will you ensure the right balance is struck between protections for consumers and regulation for small institutions in the consumer bureaus rural areas whampt other actions can the agency take to minimize the impact of regulations on these institutions without sacrificing protections for consumers? >> thank you for raising that issue, mr. chairman, many of the members have raised that with us. first of all, i have made a promise openly at this committee hearing when i was up on my nomination that we would work to reduce the burdens on community banks and credit unions who i firmly believe and i have said before and will continue to say had very l

mr. chairman, i yield back. >> mr. royce? >> thank you, mr. chairman. hello, how you? > pleasure to see you, mr. royce. >> nice to see. i have some of the same concerns. basically i think we are borrowing about 37 cents on every dollar right now in the u.s. come and we are a lot of that from china. so, from the standpoint of people here, we're spending money we don't have. and i think we can do better than borrowing money from china, only to get it back to them. and from the standpoint of many of us here, that looks like what we are doing here. china already has a competitive advantage over the united states right now with this keystone project this weekend. chinese head of state is out meeting with prime mr. harper trying to convince him to send that oil to china, rather than allow to come into the market and deny states. and so i would just ask, you know, we get down to the technology transfer issue here as well. section see, its description of the u.s.-china clean energy and climate partnership says, usaid does not necessarily intend to promote technology transfer or

mr. chairman, and thank you, mr. richard cordray. my interest in the agency as one of the initial sponsors came after 10 years of trying to get simple credit card disclosure. i got the basic "they are busy with other things." none of the other agencies put the consumer at the top of their mission. so, an independent agency had a great deal of appeal to me. it is an agency designed to finally put consumers first. it is under attack even before it is fully on its feet, and i do not want to go back to the old days where we go to the fed were some agency and say the consumer needs this reasonable protection, the simple adam smith disclosure. no one knew what interest rates were when they signed up for credit cards, and the fed interest rates were sporadic. i like the fed in general, but in this area they were not very good. so, in general, here we have an attack that is not in the ordinary. it is extraordinary. two sides make arguments, and put it to a vote. we fought those battles last year. consumers one. now the consumer protection ha

mr. chairman. mr. cordray, as i noted in my opening statement recreptly you stated that the bureau will convene small business panels as part of its rule making. and your quote is not just because the law tells us to do so, but because we recognize it will help us do our work better. it's a good quote. however the bureau did not convene a panel before publishing the final rule on remittance transfers. i understand that you believe you are not legally required to hold panels for this rule because the federal reserve board proposed the rule but the intent of congress was, i thought, was pretty clear regarding the potential effects of your rules on small, medium-sized businesses. i'm concerned that you have already displayed a propensity, perhaps to use technicalities to achieve your own goals. perhaps i'm wrong. could you explain your actions or the actions of the bureau? i know you haven't been there long, regarding the small business panels and your intentions in the future? we think that's important t

mr. chairman. >> thank you. senator sessions. >> mr. chairman, i would yield my time to senator johnson. >> thank you, senator sessions. and mr. chairman, i'd like to agree with you that i think it's crucial we have a plan. i certainly want to extend my hand. i'd like to do everything possible to work out a budget resolution. i think that's just absolutely crucial to restore some confidence, reduce some levels of uncertainty because as somebody who, you know, been in business for 31 years, made investment decisions, hired people, created jobs, i don't think there's any doubt really what's holding back our economy is the high level of uncertainty and just a total lack of confidence in what's going to happen with our economy. i think so much of that is driven by what's going to happen with our government. you know, to me it really is the cause of our problem is the size, the scope, all the regulations, all the intrusion of government into our lives, into economic decisions that businesses have to make and the cost to government. i couldn't

mr. chairman. i mentioned in my opening statement and believe we need to change the culture of the system from one that simply measures the distribution of benefits to one that focuses more on giving the unemployed back to work. the changes like this are already being made in a number of states, and i am glad to see this, but i believe we need to do more to facilitate this shift you have both discussed your efforts to improve reemployment at the state level. what evidence can you point to that the ideas you have mentioned, job search, we implement services, or training programs reduce the length of time individuals spend receiving unemployment benefits and also, what metrics which you use to evaluate these programs? will start with you. >> in texas we have self-imposed 18-week reemployment measure on ourselves to rapidly reemployed. we use that as a metric and hold our local offices accountable to that. by making them a priority and an outcome-based initiative, i think it is the key. to my knowledg

mr. chairman. mr. cordray, as i noted in my opening statement, recently you stated that the bureau will convene small business panels as part of the rule making. your quote is not just because the law tells us to do so, but because we recognize that it will help us do our work better. it's a good quote. however the bureau did not convene a panel before publishing the final rule on remittance transfers, i understand you believe you are not legally required to hold panels because the federal reserve board proposed the rule and the intent of congress i thought was clear regarding the potential effects of your rules on small, medium sized businesses. i'm concerned that you have already displayed a habit of using technicalities to not have to follow. we think it's important to comply with the letter and the spirit of the law. >> yes, senator. i agree. and let me clear up the record on that. i appreciate the opportunity to do that. >> okay. >> so, as i said, the small business panels, i meant it then and now

mr. chairman, and good morning, mr. chairman. >> be sure to turn your microphone on. >> ok. i think it's on. good morning, chairman, ranking member, and other members of the subcommittee on energy and power. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today. the u.s. department of state received the application for keystone x.l. pipeline project in september 2008. we undertook a thorough, rigorous, and transparent process to determine whether issuing the presidential permit for this pipeline was in the national interest -- >> would you please pull the mic closer to you? >> is that better? >> much better. >> ok. i think you know that first part already. in december, congress passed a contrary payroll tax cut continuation act of 2011, which required a determination by the president within 60 days of whether the keystone x.l. pipeline project would serve the national interest. on january 18, 2012, the department of state recommended to the president that the application for a presidential permit be denied due to insufficient time to conduct the necessary analysis. the pres

mr. chairman. i want to just comment our fellow members of congress who've taken the bold leadership on this legislation. mr. jones, ms. slaughter and mr. walz. you are certainly to be commended. at i want to thank u. come mr. chairman for holding this hearing on the stock trading on congressional knowledge act. it is very important that we honor the trust of the american people that it place in the members of congress and the act would bar members of congress and federal employees from profiting from information that is not publicly available. that day of the team by means of their elected positions. the stock act would also direct the commodities of the future trading commission to prohibit someone from buying or selling a commodity from future delivery or swap while in possession of material information that is not public. a very important and should be the case. currently, as a matter of fact inside trading is not forbidden by the law. however, they're have been reports to members of congress an

mr. chairman, i do offer the amendment. and i will read the amendment. in addition, if not previously transferred to the mayor's office of housing within five years of effective date of this ordinance, the director of property, and the director of the mayor's office of housing shall meet and confer at that time in addition to consulting with the district supervisor and members of the public to evaluate the best use of the property and whether it should be maintained as neighborhood open space or transferred back to the mayor's office of housing. such a valuation will take into account if it is being used as public space, if the use is benefiting the neighborhood, if the transfer would be detrimental to the surrounding neighborhood, and the benefits for affordable housing production. that is the amendment. the mayor's office of housing, i believe, should be here as well. would you like to say anything? and are you hear from the mayor's office? >> yes, we are supportive of the amendment, it would provide a date certain for possibility of using it for affor

mr. chairman. if this were about protests today, we wouldn't be having this hearing. i was here on may 4th, have to get my millennia right. i was here may 4th, 1971, the first anniversary of the killings at kent state in which the mall was still with protestors from antiwar protestors and protesters over the campus disruptions and the early dismissal of universities throughout the country as a result of their law abiding protest. the fact is we are all here protecting and promoting the idea that the d.c. is and will continue to be a place for the protests to occur. if anything i believe that we have facilitated like no other city in the united states and i want to continue to do so. mr. chairman, let me just give you a fairly straightforward number. it's roughly 208 feet. the size of the square makes it one of the smallest parts of the park service overseas. if we are to say that anyplace here in the district or around the country for a protest can become a campground simply because someone is prot

mr. chairman, if you could act today. i was ill-advised, and i want to make it very clear, i want to advise the department to make the submission that they need to make, making it conditional in an action by the board. i would suggest that you hold a special meeting in the next week or so to make sure that the department is on solid ground, communicating to others that this is an issue that has captured the focus of the board and that action will be taken on it. supervisor campos: commissioner kim, do you have any preference? supervisor chiu: i -- supervisor kim: i still have a lot of questions that i need to be answered. replacing the $4.8 million on second street. supervisor campos: is that a motion to continue to the call of the chair? i would be happy to make sure that we have a special meeting as soon as possible. supervisor kim: yes, thank you. supervisor campos: colleagues, can we take that motion without objection? without objection. thank you. madam clerk, please call item no. 7. >> item #7. the authority's enabl

mr. chairman, can we close public comment? supervisor mar: public comment is closed. supervisor wiener: this is a difficult time of day for many dog walkers. i had some come to give me feedback, and i have gotten some that i thought " -- i does want to thank everyone who has participated. it has been an interesting process, and i think you for teaching me. first, mr. chairman, i would like to see if we can take the amendments that we have here, which i have outlined, if we can accept those amendments? >> to just clarify, there is the proposed recommendations, and i think all of them are recommended accept the number. >> i would like to accept those and then have been an amendment or not have an amendment. >> -- president chiu: so on the amendment, without objection. [gavel] supervisor wiener: in this one area that says that the permittees cannot walk more than seven dogs at one time, i will say that having heard from an enormous number of dog walkers, i would say probably 80% advocated for eight dogs. probably about 10% advocated for a lower number, and may be about 1

mr. chairman. under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the gentlelady from tennessee, mrs. blackburn, is recognized for the remainder of the hour. the gentlewoman from tennessee. then under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the gentleman from mississippi, mr. harper, is recognized for the remainder of the hour. mr. harper: thank you, mr. chairman. you know, the president has spent a lot of time during the last three months traveling around the country these many months, demanding that congress put aside party differences and pass the bill referring to his $447 billion so-called jobs bill. but if the president were to get off the campaign trail and focus on the facts, he would realize that house republicans have been advancing a pro-growth agent that creates jobs without expanding the federal government's role. the house of representatives has voted numerous times this year, in the 112th congress, to increase american oil production, which would put americans back to

mr. chairman, thanks foe coming on the show tonight. >> good to be with us. >> let me, mr. chairman, show you three things that make me become very disturbed that they're playing to a branch of this party that you and i have seen in milder forms before, some of which i named before you came on. if you listen to the same rick santorum. in january of last year, say this about president obama, and abortion that he brought in race. >> the question is, this is what barack obama didn't want answered -- is that human life? a person under the constitution? and barack obama says no. well, if that person, human life is not a person, i find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, no, we are going to decide who who are people and who are not people. >> i think he said black man that time. he might have said blah man. let's look at ron paul's newsletter, express, horribly bigoted ideas, saying if you've ever been robbed by a black teenage male, you know how unbelievably fleet of foot they can be. order was restored in l.a., only when it came time for blacks to pick up their welfare

mr. chairman. you said that, there were still 30 seconds left. >> i looked at it >> -- >> we will enforce the five-minute rule. >> thank you for recognizing me. mr. chairman, i am also delighted to see the referee there. this is a good opportunity for them to exercise their craft and i expect the battle to take place this morning because today we are holding yet another hearing on the keystone x.l. pipeline as the follow-up to the last hearing, last markup and the full vote we had where the majority forced the obama administration to make a decision on the keystone x.l. pipeline. let me remind you the majority first tried to remove legislation that required the administration to forego its legal obligations and its due diligence and come out with a favorable decision for keystone x.l. november 1 of last year. and the majority's reckless and irresponsible -- so be it if the american public was left unprotected because the administration did not have the time needing to conduct a thorough review -- a

mr. chairman. >> all right. we'll quickly move to our third witness and if the staff can help us set that up. because we have to get out of here in about 15 minutes. >>> coming up this afternoon at 3:00 eastern, we'll go live to the united nations in new york where security council meeting on violence in syria. secretary of state hillary clinton is expected to push the 22-member group's proposal for syrian presidential assad to step down in favor of a national unity government. that's according to a white house official who is not authorized to speak on the record. we'll bring that you meeting again starting at 3:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3. of course, today primary day in florida. tonight, watch our live coverage of the results starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span2. we'll have candidate speeches and your reaction by phone, facebook, and twitter. and throughout the day, read the latest from the candidates, updates from political reporters, and get viewer comments at c-span.org/campaign2012. more on tonigh

mr. chairman. well we want to thank you for being with us this morning, and giving us your decide of it, we are going to be back in one minute when we will hear from the chairman of the democratic party. >> schieffer:. >> well ahead of the democratic party also happens to be a florida congresswoman, debbie wassermann schultz whose district is just to the north of here. >> yes. >> top of florida. >> >> schieffer: thank you very much, this thing has really gotten nasty, this republican primary. are you enjoying it? >> well, as a representative of the state of florida and someone who represents millions of senior citizens and struggling homeowners who are really hoping to be able to remain in their homes, what i am not enjoying is seeing this extreme republican field led by mitt romney that thinks that we should don't anything to help homeowners remain in their homes, when it comes to seniors, had a proposal he supports that would end medicare as we know it. is, mitt romney in particular sat on the bo

mr. chairman. mr. gruenberg, in our work papers here, reading papers, there's a statement that says chairman volcker has argued that activities such as trading in sponsoring hedge funds and private funds should not be conducted by firms that benefit from a federal safety net such as deposit insurance or access to the federal reserve system discount window. proponents of the rule argue that moving them out is a benefit from deposit insurance and access to the window, would better protect taxpayers and help create a more resilient u.s. banking system. what's your response to that, reaction to that statement? >> i think the underlying premise of the proponents is that the activity here is speculative short-term trading. >> right. >> relying on funds that are generated as result of the public safety net of deposit insurance and access to the discount window. i think that's, for the proponent, that's the key issue. and that's why they want to constrain the activity that is inappropriate to affect engage in s

mr. chairman. and thank you for holding today's hearing. i'd like to begin by reading a mission statement of the cfpb. quote, to make markets for financial products work for america to whether they are applying for a mortgage, credit cards or using any number of other consumer financial products. let's remember why we are here. there can be no amnesia about the fact that these market were not working for americans before the financial crisis. we can patchwork regulation to allow dangerous consumer financial products and toxic financial instruments to infiltrate the market. unscrupulous members are able to take advantage of consumers by fraudulent and deceptive financial projects. this reckless planning poison the financial system and directly contributed to the mortgage meltdown. we explicitly created the cfpb to protect americans from these fraudulent and abusive products. on july 21, 2011, cfpb to go or consumer protection authorities from the federal reserve, fdic, ftc, lcc, ots and hud. but by

mr. chairman. >> turn on your microphone. >> i think it is on. good morning, members of the subcommittee on energy and power. i appreciate the opportunity to be here before you today. we received the outline for the project in 2008 and we undertook a thorough and rigorous process to determine the issuance of the pipeline -- >> would you please pull the microphone closer to you? >> is that better? i think you know the first part already. in december, congress passed a temporary payroll tax cut extension act of 2011 which required a response within 60 days. on january 18th, 2012, the department of state recommend that the application for presidential permit be denied due to insufficient time to conduct necessary analysis. the president to accept it and we felt the pipeline, as looked at by that time, would not benefit national interests. i would like to comment on the administration's view of h.r. 3548. on april 30th, 2004, president bush issued executive order 13- 337 to empower the department of st

mr. chairman, thank you.en't had a very good time in all the republican presidential debates and i was wondering if i could have your comment on what you've heard and some of the analysts i talked to said that one of the reasons for this hostility perhaps is that a lot of the republican primary voters are on fixed incomes and have an inability to invest and make money with their funds. so, could you talk to them as well? and one more thing, if republicans take back the white house in november and ask you to resign, would you? >> i'm not going to get involved in political rhetoric. i'm just going to stay completely away from that. i have a job to do and as long as i'm here i will do everything i can to help the federal reserve achieve its mandate of price stability and maximum employment. that's my answer to the last part as well. i'm not going to be thinking about hypothetical situations in the future. in the case of the savers, you know, we think about all these issues and we certainly recognize that the low

mr. chairman, i would ask if my colleagues have any comments to make. supervisor mar: i wanted to say thank you for everyone turning out, i hope that people are civil at listen to different perspectives. if people cannot speak out from the audience if others are speaking and also when the supervisor is speaking. we have a city attorney who is here that i have a number of legal questions to ask and i am appreciative that he already started to discuss some of the different issues brought up in the literature. and the amendments of that the supervisor has laid out, we have many copies if people want them. if anybody has any questions, they should see the clerk of here. let me give it back to his supervisor leader -- to supervisor wiener. we need to limit the time to 2 minutes a person today. supervisor wiener: if you have not filled out a speaker card, please do so. when you have 30 seconds left, you will hear a soft about, and when the time is up, you will hear a loud bell. if someone ahead of you has said something that you agree with, you can save you a

mr. chairman, no one has indicated an interest of addressing you up to this point. >> good afternoon, director. first, i want to wish you a happy new year and a major happy new year from munich. with all of the stuff i learned from this today, i thought it was just like the old days, so i learned something, and that may improve your numbers. one little complaint that i have heard about, the student clipper cards, it is very difficult for people to add money to the student clipper cards. there should be a place where every mile or so on major routes where you can get off and just recharged on a monthly basis. it is easy in my neighborhood, but i never heard people who cannot do that and have to go downtown, and that is completely out of the way, so we should work on that. and i want to add my voice that we should sometime soon nubbers is still young get people to use clipper card for every ride. the advantage is that when you have your small increases, they just go right into the clipper card, and of course, you've already started to speak that if you want people to use the clipper card 100%, t

mr. chairman. supervisor avalos: we are adjourned. thank you. >> hello. you're watching the show that explores san francisco's love affair with food. there are at least 18 farmers markets in san francisco alone, providing fresh and affordable to year-round. this is a great resource that does not break the bank. to show just how easy it can be to do just that, we have come up with something called the farmers' market challenge. we find someone who loves to cook, give them $20, and challenge them to create a delicious meal from ingredients found right here in the farmer's market. who did we find for today's challenge? >> today with regard to made a pot greater thanchapino. >> you only have $20 to spend. >> i know peter it is going to be tough, but i think i can do it. it is a san francisco classic. we are celebrating bay area food. we have nice beautiful plum tomatoes here. we have some beautiful fresh fish here. it will come together beautifully. >> many to cut out all this talk, and let's go shop. yeah. ♪ >> what makes your dish unique? >> i like it spicy

mr. chairman, but it is petering out, as you also said.of kudos for what it has done, but i want to focus on congressional action. i realize that for many members, voting for tarp in 2008 was about as much fun as a root canal work, but i have little doubt that history will record that that vote, the vote for the recovery act in february 2009, followed then by the very successful banks stress tests that spring, which required the tarp money behind them to be effective, really turned the tide, and making a horrific situation merely terrible. it is a hard point to make, right? we wound up at a terrible point. it could have been much, much worse. in the paper that you mentioned, mr. chairman, we use a large scale model of the u.s. economy. to estimate the overall impact of all of these policy responses taken together on the economy. i think, as far as i know, it is the only such estimate to the state. there are many such estimate to the effects of the recovery act, for example, but there were many things done in the financial arena. we estimat

mr. chairman, commissioners, my name is jim ayers cgr management consultants. we were asked to give a short overview of the audit, just as they were pressured to the point that we -- were fresher to the point that we made here -- refreshers to the points that we made here. we completed the draft of the report in march 2011. we had three rounds of the review. final presentation in november. we had a fairly lengthy review process that went on, by the agency, and by the board, because we did not want to give sfmta a report that had not been vetted through the commissioners. these are the five areas of concern. with these, we had 19 recommendations, which we highlighted in the executive summary. these were reviewed by sfmta. they concurred with 17 of the 19, partially concurred with two others. let me just highlight some of those recommendations under these categories. with respect to project time, cost overruns, we had recommended an asset management team to improve accountability for project execution for assets foreign generating -- for generating projects as pa

mr. chairman.nway -- if he said this before it got here, i'm sorry. the inspector general's report had about 723,000 out of 1,000,004 for the residents do not comply with medicare reimbursement criteria, which is site and put mr. that just was speaking about here and that is an alarming rate. what authority do you need to create the incentives are improved or promote compliance within the rates of noncompliance you have now? >> so he agreed that cms should not be paying for medically inappropriate uses of medication. i think it is inappropriate payment issue. it's also the quality of care issue. as i did allude to in the survey and certification of quality measurement in which he touched on that we measure quality which historically have not. working to do that as early as spring comes to that the critical factor transparently sharing information with beneficiaries and their family and nursing home compare. in addition, with her party colleagues, we continue to work with pdp drug plan sponsors. we

mr. chairman, what would be the motivation of the obama administration, to basically overlook what coulde detrimental, as you say, to our national security. >> right, in one sense i'd like to ask them that question, too, seems to me that the primary responsibility, the primary job of the president is to protect americans, protect americans from individuals who would do us harm and for the administration to allow this policy going on, the last couple years since this administration took office, is really at odds with what our president is sworn to do and that is to protect the american people. there's no good explanation, why they're doing this, other than two possible answers. one, a personal philosophy on the part of many administration officials that we want to basically, we want to give amnesty to illegal immigrants, approve everybody who wants to come to this country and undermines the national sovereignty and maybe a mindset that we're not worried about national security we're more worried about trying to garner votes from the next election and so we're going to try to pander to a c